Florida
Live winter storm updates: Tallahassee coated in 2 inches of sleet mixed with snow
A historic winter storm that dumped snow and sleet on a wide swath of the Gulf Coast left Tallahassee covered in a blanket of the frozen stuff Wednesday morning.
The National Weather Service in Tallahassee recorded 1.9 inches of mostly sleet at its office on the campus of Florida State University.
Forecasters said it was too early to tell whether the ice and snow would approach or beat Tallahassee’s all-time snowfall record of 2.8 inches set in 1958.
Here are updates from the path of the winter storm:
The Tallahassee Police Department is urging people to stay off the roads, which were slick and icy Wednesday morning.
The city never saw widespread official road closures. The most notable was a brief shutdown of a stretch of Thomasville Road in northeast Tallahassee and a longer-term closure of the Capital Circle flyover leading to Interstate 10.
But city and police officials warned that all roads should be considered dangerous.
“Snowy, icy roads and continued freezing temps have created EXTREMELY dangerous roadway conditions,” the city said in a post on X/Twitter. “TPD urges residents to stay off the roads for their safety and for the safety of emergency responders.”
The city said emergency crews worked overnight to address issues and will continue working through the day.
“Road clearing crews spread more than 40 tons of sand over roadways including 25 bridges,” the city said. “As work continues, please stay off the roads. They are not safe for travel.”
Tallahassee appeared to have gotten mostly sleet, with some snow mixed in, from the winter storm system — the result of a powerful Arctic air mass that invaded the Deep South colliding with slightly warmer air from the Gulf of Mexico.
“Definitely, the vast majority of it was sleet,” said David Reese, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Tallahassee. “We may have had a couple of minutes periodically through the night that was pure snow. And there was a little bit of time periods last night and early this morning where it was a combination of freezing rain and sleet. So very, very icy.”
Reese said slightly warmer air — perhaps a degree above freezing — moved in over Tallahassee as part of a low pressure system that interacted with Arctic air already in place.
“By warmer, I’m talking 33 degrees,” Reese said. “I mean that’s really all it takes — hey you get snow or you get sleet. If it had been 32 or or less, it would have been at least mixed in with a fair amount of more snow.”
He said snowfall totals across southern Alabama and Georgia, where the air was much colder, ranged from 6 to 8 inches. Parts of the Florida Panhandle got as much as 5 inches of snow.
With a coating of ice on trees and power lines, the city of Tallahassee said it restored power to 10 circuits and about 12,000 customers overnight.
The city’s online power outage map showed about 557 customers without power as of about 7:55 a.m.
“Crews are actively working and will continue to work through the day,” the city said in a mass text to customers. “Additional outages could occur.”
Talquin Electrical Cooperative continued to struggle with widespread outages Wednesday morning in Wakulla County and southern and eastern Leon County, where freezing rain brought down lines. About 11% of the grid was offline at 8:15 a.m, with about half of customers in the dark in the Shadeville and Chaires areas.
Florida
Lane Kiffin Offered ‘Blank Check’ From Major SEC Rival Amid LSU, Florida Rumor Mill
The 2025 coaching carousel has had no shortage of twists and turns this fall with multiple powerhouse programs parting ways with their head coaches as the season winds down.
The LSU Tigers, Florida Gators, Penn State Nittany Lions, Auburn Tigers, and Arkansas Razorbacks, among others, are in search of new decision-makers after making changes in leadership this fall.
For the Ole Miss Rebels, the program is “sitting pretty” with a 9-1 record with Lane Kiffin and Co. within arms reach of a College Football Playoff berth for the first time in school history, but the program remains in headlines for other reasons.
As the coaching carousel heats up, Kiffin has become the hottest name on the market for job openings – specifically the LSU and Florida gigs.
He’s the betting favorite for the Florida Gators job and is a top target for the LSU Tigers job this fall.
As Kiffin and his camp navigate the behind-the-scenes work, there’s an expectation that the Ole Miss shot-caller could become the highest paid coach in college football – whether it be at Ole Miss, LSU or Florida.
Fox Sports analyst Joel Klatt believes LSU and Ole Miss are prepared to offer a blank check to the shot-caller that is receiving interest from schools across America.
“There’s an old coaching adage out there that the quickest way to be defeated is to be distracted,” Klatt said. “I think that the biggest threat to Ole Miss down the stretch is distraction. And that distraction in the form of their future head coach.
“I don’t know where Lane Kiffin is going to end up. I know that Ole Miss is basically telling him, ‘Hey, it’s a blank check. You tell us what you need to stay here, and we will do it.’ I have that on good authority.
“I also have, on pretty good authority, that LSU is prepared to do the same thing for Lane Kiffin. They’ll basically tell him, ‘The keys are yours.’ Florida is a job that I think Lane would prefer over the other two, from what I’ve been told, and they are not quite in the same boat as Ole Miss and LSU in terms of ‘here, the sky is yours and name your price.’ There are more strings.”
Despite the outside noise, Kiffin is remaining focused on the task at hand this fall with a College Football Playoff berth growing closer for No. 7 Ole Miss.
“I haven’t even talked about it to them, and I think I’m pretty close to the players, where they walk by or they say something, you know, like, if it was on their mind, they’d make a joke or something,” Kiffin said. “I don’t think it is. They’re very focused on what to do.”
“Again, I said it’s a different age nowadays, like when I addressed it a couple weeks ago. I certainly don’t think it was a distraction since. We won at Oklahoma, South Carolina, and played really well last week. This is kind of the world that we’re in.”
Ole Miss (9-1, 5-1 SEC) will return to action on Saturday night for a primetime matchup against the Florida Gators. Kickoff is set for 6 p.m. CT at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in Oxford.
National Analyst Believes Miami Dolphins Should Hire Ole Miss Football’s Lane Kiffin
Ole Miss Football Great Doubles Down on Lane Kiffin to Florida Gators ‘Not Happening’
Tony Vitello Pokes Fun at Ole Miss Football’s Lane Kiffin in Goodbye to Tennessee
Follow Zack Nagy on Twitter: @znagy20 and Ole Miss Rebels On SI: @OleMissOnSI for all coverage surrounding the Ole Miss program.
Florida
Central Florida pet owners struggle as SNAP ends
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Florida
Northern lights dance over Space Coast Tuesday night, turning sky red
Are the northern lights visible as far south as Florida?
Turns out the answers is yes, even as far south as Florida’s Space Coast — thanks to a powerful solar storm Tuesday.
Many across Florida did not believe their eyes as the sky glowed the night of Nov. 11 when the northern lights reached all the way to the southern most states. People from Merritt Island and Titusville began to post photos of the sky glowing red as the aurora danced in the sky.
This aurora was due to charged particles from the sun interacting with Earth’s atmosphere as a result of high solar activity. But it’s not always visible without the help of a camera − even in northern states.
While it was only detectable by camera at first, around 11:30 p.m. Nov. 11 the northern sky over Brevard County glowed a red hue which was visible to the eye even under light pollution. It was not just on the horizon either − these lights climbed high into the sky.
Moderate solar activity had been predicted, but it was not anticipated that an aurora would travel as far south.
USA Today reported on Nov. 11 that the latest National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration aurora forecast map showed the lights only having a chance of reaching as far south as Pennsylvania. That was quickly proven to be underestimated as the aurora danced into the southern states as night fell.
While not as visible, the only other time in recent years that Florida’s Space Coast saw the northern lights was during a solar storm in May 2024.
Brooke Edwards is a Space Reporter for Florida Today. Contact her at bedwards@floridatoday.com or on X: @brookeofstars.
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